Matthew Lynn in a piece in The Spectator Coffee House blog (HERE) claims that Britain is doing all the innovative thinking in the Brexit negotiations. In a strange sense Mr Lynn is for once correct. If demanding fantasy and completely unrealistic solutions to complex problems is innovative then he is certainly right. Unfortunately, the truth is we are being "innovative" on the wrong topics, at the wrong time and in the wrong way.
This would be his idea of "innovative thinking" on matters relating to cake. You first note that your negotiating partner has made it absolutely clear that there are several major issues to be resolved before getting to matters of cake. You totally ignore these other difficult issues and set out your four principles on cake in a lengthy memorandum full of flowery stuff but which in essence boils down to this:
1. We want a deep and special relationship but we must eat the cake.
2. After eating the cake it should still be available to us for later
3. We want a deep and special relationship but someone else must pay for the cake
4. The cake must also be available to be offered for sale to friends overseas
You then smugly sit back and wait for your partner to provide detailed solutions which satisfy your principles. Meanwhile members of the press, those in favour of cake, congratulate you on saving the day with "innovative thinking" and fill the pages of the media with praise for your dazzling negotiating skills.
When your negotiating partner gently points out that your principles are (a) contradictory and impossible and (b) cannot be discussed anyway until other issues are resolved, you accuse them of everything from bad faith to wanting to scupper the whole negotiation. Oh, and of course a lack of imaginative thinking presumably?
One begins to understand what it must have been like to live in the USSR circa 1965, reading the latest food production figures in Pravda while knowing your local supermarket only seemed to have empty shelves for sale.
One begins to understand what it must have been like to live in the USSR circa 1965, reading the latest food production figures in Pravda while knowing your local supermarket only seemed to have empty shelves for sale.
